Those who know me know I own a bunch of Yaesu FT-60R radios that I use all the time for presentations and working FM satellites. And the FT-60R is a great HT, indeed.

But I grabbed my VX-6R last night to hit a couple favorite repeaters to let fellow hams know we had a visible pass of the ISS again coming up soon. After the pass, I sat down outside and manually thumbed through my memories.

With just a 22-inch SMA antenna (the Smiley 270A) in Jurupa Valley, CA, transmissions from WWV on both 5 and 10 MHz were strong enough to break my normal squelch setting and be heard loud and clear.

I've attached a long wire to my VX-6R (and even the little VX-3R) before, and had impressive results scanning the SW frequencies. But I don't remember receiving WWV with just an HT antenna on my VX-6R before.

Just a short little story. I also enjoy (or, more accurately, my aging eyes appreciate) the bolder font used in the VX-6R's display. It is a great little HT.

I bought a tiny and dirt cheap Yaesu VX-3 HT a few months ago and I'm amazed how well it picks up shortwave broadcast stations and, yes, WWV. Too bad it has no product detector and fine tuning for CW or SSB. I can hear garbled sideband as I tune across ham bands.

It's also excellent for railroad listening (around 161 MHz) and air around 122 MHz.

Only shortcoming is poor sensitivity on the AM broadcast band with the built-in ferrite antenna. It's also a bear to program without outboard software, some practice, and good eyes.

Yes, very impressive tech, even far outside its transmitting range of 144 and 440 MHz.

This all started for me with the VX-2R and its pre-programmed SW freqs ... I soldered up a random-length long wire to an SMA connector and sat outside in the evening, and remember hearing broadcasts on more than 20 of the pre-programmed freqs!

Then the same with the VX-3R ... and I manually programmed a few AM broadcast band, FM broadcast band, and a couple SW freqs in the VX-6R.

No, it is not a dedicated receiver ... but for a very casual SW listening experience, I was pleasantly surprised!

One thing that irritates me, though, with my VX-6R: I have tried and tried talking to the guy on 162.450 - but he never stops talking to let anyone else get a word in ...

Before I upgraded to General I enjoyed hiking with my Kenwood TH-6a and a home-brewed 72" telescoping whip antenna (from Radio Shack, but no longer available) with an SMA connector (once I got out of the trees at least!). I remember hiking up a ski slope one fall afternoon, listening to Radio Netherlands blasting in S9+ all day. I just kept the radio in my daypack along with headphones, mostly for listening but also in case I got into a bind.

I sold that radio after picking up an FT-817. Haven't done any hikes with it yet, but now seeing this thread I'm itching to go. Too bad I'm on call and have chores I've been putting off!

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